Year Round Vegetable Planting Chart for Coastal BC

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Gary(earlier post) was nice enough to provide a link to some planting time charts. Here is a planting time chart specific to Coastal BC. I obtained the info from the "West Coast Seeds" seed catologue.

Hopefully those in the coastal British Columbia area will find this info useful.Those south of us (in oregon for example) could probably follow the info below, however, start things a few weeks earlier than us northeners.

Direct sow overwintering varieties of broccoli now.
Direct sow cucumbers now or transplant plants started indoors on May 1st.
Transplant eggplants (outside but undercover) that were started indoors on April 1st.
Transplant melons outside now that were started indoors on April 15th.
Transplant pepper plants (started indoors on March 1st) outside now, however, put them undercover until July 1st.
June 15th direct sow Rutabaga seeds outside.
Continue to direct sow Arugula, Beans, Brocolli, cabbage , cilantro, endive/raddichio, lettuce, onions, scallions, fennel, kale, collards, parsnips, peas, swiss chard and turnips throughout the whole month of june.
Direct plant corn, leeks, pumpkins, squash and cucumber up until June 15th.
June 1st, uncover tomatoes now as it should be warm enough for them.

July

Plant overwintering varieties cabbage now.
Start indoor seeds overwintering cauliflower now and later transplant it last two weeks in August.
Plant 2nd crops of Oriental greens now.
Continue planting pole/bush beans until July 7th.
Continue planting beets until July 15th.
Start 2nd crops of Kohlrabi on July 15th.
Plant Rutabagas up until July 15th.
Continue direct seeding more crops of Arugula, broccoli, overwintering broccoli, Overwintering varieties of cabbage, cilantro, endive/raddichio, lettuce, onions, scallions, oriental greens, spinach and turnips throughout the month of July.

August

Plant 2nd crops of corn salad now until Sept 15th.
Start 2nd crops of carrots between August 7th to the 21st.
Direct plant overwinter onion varieties August 1st until the 15th.
Continue planting peas until August 15th.
Continue planting Swiss Chard until 1st week of August.
August 1st to 15th,Transplant brussel sprout plants that were started indoors on May 15th to June 15th.
August 15th to Aug 30th, transplant overwinter cauliflower plants that were started on July 7th to July 21st.
Continue to direct sow Kohlrabi until August 15th.
Continue to direct sow Arugula, Corn salad, lettuce, oriental greens, spinach and turnips throughout the month of August.

September

Time to put cilantro and lettuce crops undercover if weather gets colder.
Apparently certain varieties of garlic can be planted now up until the end of October.
Direct Sow 2nd crops of radishes now.
Direct sow, Arugula and corn salad up until Sept 7th and Sept 15th.
Continue to direct sow spinach all month

October

Plant winter crops of broad beans now until the end of November.
Continue to direct sow garlic, radishes and spinach for the whole month of October, however, put the spinach under a protective cover commencing Sept 15th.

November

Continue to sow broad beans until the end of the month.
Sow radishes, however undercover until the end of November
Sow spinach under cover until November 15th.

December

Nothing mentioned

In Summary:

I'm sure that the above is only a rough guideline as seasons can vary from year to year.Those folks south of us in Oregon etc can probaly start things a few weeks earlier than listed here.I noticed that they missed potatoes, herbs and other crops, however a lot is mentioned above and should be useful.

Personally being a coastal BC er(and a confused rookie...LOL) , I'll follow this chart to the letter.

I do plan on trying this "carrot secret" that I read about in garden book.
You start the carots indoors and plant 10-15 seeds(well spread out) in a four inch pots. When the carots reach four inches high (a month later)you transplant the whole pot outdoors, not disturbing the roots. Each planted clump must have 6 inches of distance all around in between them. You can then harvest a whole clump of baby carrots or thin them as you go to produce bigger carrots. By starting them indoors, you can get a month to 6 weeks jump on the (direct planting) growing season.

By using this indoor starting method , you can keep a continual supply of carrots going as the season progresses. You remove one clump and simply replce it with some started indoors.To keep the carrot flys away you mulch the carots with coffee grounds, as the coffee grounds will mask the scent of the carotts and confuse the fly.

RJ

gary

Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor

Posted: Dec-23-2006 at 2:25am

RJ

Those timings do look very good and at my first glance a little bit earlier than Trav's as they should be.

On your carrot test, I have sometimes had it take almost three week for carrots to emerge. Don't get discouraged early.

Farmer's Market growers use the same technique with onions in plug seeding trays. In an 1 1/2 to 2 inch hole, they will sow 3-5 seeds for bulb onions and a dozen seeds for scallions. Then you trans plant the whole plug. I transplanted about six 6-packs of Copra onions last spring for a friend that was trying it on about 12" centers. He reported very satisfactory results that were only a little smaller than our purchased transplants that I placed at about 5 inches spaces down the row.

His transplants were smaller than the purchased ones. They also seems to grow immediately while the Texas grown transplants took awhile to come back from their shipment week and the two days of sub 30F nights they got just after the transplanting. His plants had been in an open greenhouse and had no trouble with that weather.

On an earlier thread, I have discussed the friend that scatters about 20 Copra seeds in 4-inch pots about Jan 1st. He germinates them, then sets them in a 'greenhouse' window in his shop/garage until he has trimmed the tops (@3") once or twice. Then he sets the pot and all into the ground outside. When St. Patrick's Day comes around, he pulls the pots, separates the plants and row plants his onions. Almost all other attempts by both these growers of Copra failed. I think because they kept wanting to provide heat for the onions like they were doing with some later sown transplants. Onions can take the cold but in the low sunlight levels of late winter, they grow to much with heat and almost always would die. (The disease name escapes right now but it's the common transplant one. I'll come back an edit the name later.)